the united states abolished debtors' prisons in 1929

II, 16; Cal. 99-37-13 (West 2015) ([A] default . The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. Eventually, federal debtors' prisons were abolished in 1833, leaving the power to implement debtors' prisons in the hands of the states, many of which followed Washington's lead. The ACLU had found that debtors' prisons were "flourishing" in this country, "more than two decades after the Supreme Court prohibited imprisoning those who are too poor to pay their legal debts." . Despite arising out of a criminal proceeding, costs are cleanly distinguishable from fines, restitution, and forfeiture in their basic purpose: compensating for or subsidizing the governments marginal expenditures on criminal proceedings. ^ See Recent Legislation, supra note 23, at 1313, 1315. (14 Gray) 324, 328 (1859). Finally, violations of monetary obligations that are statutorily defined as civil. 543, 550 n.45 (1976); Note, Imprisonment for Debt: In the Military Tradition, 80 Yale L.J. See Act of May 5, 2015, 2015 Ga. Laws 422. See Complaint, Cleveland v. Montgomery, supra note 14, at 23. The proper textual and analytical hook for that question is the Excessive Fines Clause.163 They would, however, challenge a states use of collection methods unavailable to civil creditors. art. at 15657 (discussing taxes). at 4546. Eventually, the movement against imprisonment for debt would produce forty-one state constitutional provisions.95 Some of the provisions read as flat bans;96 others have various carve-outs and exceptions in the text.97 But subsequent case law narrows the practical differences among them by reading into the flat bans largely the same carve-outs.98 The nine states that havent constitutionalized a ban on imprisonment for debt Connecticut, Delaware, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, and West Virginia all have taken statutory action.99 Some statutes look on the surface a lot like the constitutional bans.100 Practically, some explicitly abolished the old writ of capias ad satisfaciendum (holding the body of the debtor in satisfaction of the debt),101 and others reinvigorated procedural protections for debtors who genuinely couldnt pay.102, Of course, these bans dont straightforwardly apply to criminal justice debt. Those who did not pay the debts so meticulously recorded by the shivering Bob Cratchit could have been thrown in prison by Scrooge part of why he was so hated and feared by his debtors. So, in 1833, Congress abolished the practice under federal law. ^ Recent Legislation, supra note 23, at 1314. Part I describes the contemporary problem with criminal justice debt in greater detail. In 2013, the ACLU of Michigan, the Brennan Center for Justice, and the Michigan State Planning Body filedan amicus briefin a debtors' prison case before the Michigan Court of Appeals, urging the issuance of guidance to lower courts to prevent debtors' prison practices. 1999) (The [creditors] are free to collect the judgment by execution, garnishment, or any other available lawful means so long as it does not include imprisonment.). at 55 (Georgia); id. As of the time of publication, Equal Justice Under Law had litigated (or is litigating) similar issues against Jennings, Missouri; Ferguson, Missouri; New Orleans, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi; and Rutherford County, Tennessee. ^ Id. Const. . v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 10506 (1973) (Marshall, J., dissenting); Johnson v. Bredesen, 624 F.3d 742, 749 (6th Cir. This Part lays out how the state law protections would differ from the federal protections, and why having multiple levels of protection makes sense. ^ The Missouri legislation, for example, seems to constrain municipal collection of criminal justice debt within certain domains. art. The abolition movement certainly did not intend to exclude such debts from the ban; whether legislatures meant to include them depends upon how sparing ones assumptions about past intent are. Despite the Courts reluctance to rule on an issue not properly briefed, federal courts might return to the issue and confirm that states must apply their bans on imprisonment for debt to costs (and other quasi-civil debts) in a criminal case.150 In fact, the lawsuits against Ferguson and Jennings hinted at this argument,151 although neither complaint cited the Missouri Constitution. ^ See Note, Civil Arrest of Fraudulent Debtors: Toward Limiting the Capias Process, 26 Rutgers L. Rev. I, 17; Ariz. Const. ^ In addition to featuring in David Copperfield (1850) and Little Dorrit (1857), debtors prisons lurk in the shadows of Dickenss classic A Christmas Carol (1843). For one, indigent debtors do not know whom to negotiate with the DMV, which mailed the speeding ticket, or the debt collector that now seems to be pursuing the matter. This Note takes a first pass at this missing constitutional argument. And the Court has made clear this discretion is central to the core penal goals of deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution.162 Against that baseline, the tradition of Bearden simply mandates that once a sentencing court has imposed a monetary obligation, it may not convert that obligation into imprisonment for failure to pay absent a special finding, a basic threshold that ensures the defendant isnt invidiously punished for being poor. The report exposes a counterproductive system for the collection of criminal justice debt. It shows that poor defendants are being jailed at increasingly alarming rates for failing to pay legal debts, creating a racially-skewed, two-tiered system of justice that violates the basic constitutional rights of poor people. Bd. Over one hundred years later, another author identified the same carve-outs and concluded theres a de facto debtors prison system in the United States. I, 21 (No person shall be imprisoned for debt arising out of or founded on contract, express or implied . The lawsuit challenges the countys practice of generating revenue by forcing manual labor on, threatening jail, and jailing indigent people who are unable to afford to pay fines, fees, costs, and restitution imposed by the county on criminal defendants. ^ Strattman v. Studt, 253 N.E.2d 749, 753 (Ohio 1969). In addition, the ACLU asks for a "bench card" to remind judges in all courts across the state that jail is not a punishment for poverty. In 2013, the ACLU of Ohio issuedOutskirts of Hope, a report documenting blatantly illegal debtors' prisons around the state. An Appendix to this Note, available on the Harvard Law Review Forum, provides the critical language of each of the forty-one state constitutional bans. During the 20th century, on three separate occasions, the Supreme Court affirmed the unconstitutionality of incarcerating those too poor to repay debt. Indeed, costs function more as fees for service or taxes than as punishments. ^ See generally Francis Bowes Sayre, Public Welfare Offenses, 33 Colum. Underlying the debts is a range of crimes, violations, and infractions, including shoplifting, domestic violence, prostitution, and traffic violations.27 The monetary obligations come under a mix of labels, including fines, fees, costs, and interest, and are generally imposed either at sentencing or as a condition of parole.28 Arrest warrants are sometimes issued when debtors fail to appear in court to account for their debts, but courts often fail to give debtors notice of summons, and many debtors avoid the courts out of fear of imprisonment.29 When courts have actually held the ability-to-pay hearings required by Bearden30 and theyve often neglected to do so31 such hearings have been extremely short, as many misdemeanor cases are disposed of in a matter of minutes.32 Debtors are almost never provided with legal counsel.33 The total amount due fluctuates with payments and added fees, sometimes wildly, and debtors are often unaware at any given point of the amount they need to pay to avoid incarceration or to be released from jail.34 Multiple municipalities have allowed debtors to pay down their debts by laboring as janitors or on a penal farm.35 One Alabama judge credited debtors $100 for giving blood.36, The problem is widespread. ^ While constitutional carve-outs for fraud will capture some debtors, it cant plausibly lower the protections of the ban to the level of Bearden: the failure to search for a job or to seek credit is hardly fraudulent. ^ See, e.g., Davis v. State, 185 So. 1915); Gooch v. Stephenson, 15 Me. 2d 1066 (Ala. 2000) (applying Morissettes framework). art. They lead to coercive debt collection, forcing poor people to forgo the basic necessities of life in order to avoid arrest and jailing. When dealing with costs, the states may adopt the reasoning of Strattman in their interpretations of state law, or the Fourteenth Amendment, under James and Fuller, may itself demand that reasoning. at 46 (quoting Or. XIII; Class Action Complaint at 5758, Jenkins v. City of Jennings, No. . We are working in state legislatures and courts, and with judicial officials to end these practices once and for all. Posted on . Const. Courts, however, did make clear that the legislature couldnt criminalize the mere nonpayment of commercial debt as a constitutional workaround. I, 12; Miss. First, assessing and collecting such debt may not be justifiable on penal grounds. II, 27; Neb. ^ See, e.g., Shepard, supra note 6, at 153132. ^ See, e.g., Robertson, supra note 3 (describing how a debtors mother and sister scraped together what money they [could]). In 2014, the ACLU of Washington and Columbia Legal Services issuedModern-Day Debtors' Prisons: The Way Court-Imposed Debts Punish People for Being Poor. VIII; id. "Murther, murther, murther, murther " shouted Free-born John Lilburne from prison. By leaving this mens rea determination to individual judges, rather than providing bright-line criteria as to how to make the distinction, the justices left open the possibility that a local judge with high standards for indigence could circumvent the spirit of Bearden and send a very, very poor debtor to jail or prison. In the latest front in the nationwide fight against debtors' prisons, on June 1, 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a proposed class action lawsuit in federal court to challenge the illegal arrest and incarceration of poor people in Lexington County, South Carolina, without a hearing or representation by counsel. If we can imprison for possession of marijuana, why cant we imprison for not paying back a loan?. Ala. Sept. 12, 2014) [hereinafter Settlement Agreement, Cleveland v. Montgomery], http://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/case/exhibit_a_to_joint_settlement_agreement_-_judicial_procedures-_140912.pdf [http://perma.cc/ZAH6-DFQS]. See U.S. Const. II, 21; N.C. Const. Facing this pressure from advocates and litigants, cities, courts, and legislatures have made some changes. $120/year. Read more. ^ Fuller v. Oregon, 417 U.S. 40, 42 (1974). . The "Abolition" of Debtors' Prisons The problems posed by nineteenth-century debtors' prisons in the United States differ in many ways from the challenges posed today by criminal justice debt. the act of securing the money or property of another with a fraudulent intent . milestone in the process of abolitionin the state of New York and throughout the United States. 938.29(4) (2015) (specifying that such debtors shall not be denied any of the protections afforded any other civil judgment debtor). ^ See ACLU, In for a Penny: The Rise of Americas New Debtors Prisons 17 (2010), http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/InForAPenny_web.pdf [http://perma.cc/2C7C-X56S] (Louisiana); id. In August 2015, the ACLU of Louisiana released, Louisianas Debtors Prisons: An Appeal to Justice. Const. Read more. Given that we are looking at a substantial sales tax shortfall, its not an insignificant issue.44, In 2013, the municipal court issued over 9000 warrants for failure to pay fines and fees resulting in large part from minor violations such as parking infractions, traffic tickets, or housing code violations.45 The city also tacked on fines and fees for missed appearances and missed payments and used arrest warrants as a collection device.46, The problem has become especially severe or has at least drawn increased attention within the past several years.47 In 2015, nonprofits Equal Justice Under Law and ArchCity Defenders sued the cities of Ferguson48 and Jennings,49 Missouri, alleging that they were running the equivalents of modern debtors prisons.50 The Ferguson complaint described a Kafkaesque journey through the debtors prison network of Saint Louis County a lawless and labyrinthine scheme of dungeon-like municipal facilities and perpetual debt.51 Equal Justice Under Law and the Southern Poverty Law Center have also sued a handful of other municipalities,52 and the ACLU has pursued an awareness campaign in a number of states, sending letters to judges and mayors in Ohio53 and Colorado.54. Despite that, state judges continued to send people to jail for failing to pay court debts. art. ^ See Charles Warren, Bankruptcy in United States History 52 (1935). In fact, the recent bench card promulgated by Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice OConnor begins as follows: Fines are separate from court costs. The late Professor William J. Stuntz also noted that regulatory crimes and core crimes like murder have dramatically different histories. Stuntz, supra, at 512. (citing Commonwealth v. Farren, 91 Mass. at 39899; Williams, 399 U.S. at 242. Matthew 18:24-26 . ^ It may also be worth pointing out that James and Fuller dealt most concretely with attorneys fees. Dist. 556.016 (2000), repealed and replaced by Act effective Jan. 1, 2017, 2014 Mo. I, 17; Wis. Const. L. Rev. L. Rev. art. Two signatories of the Declaration of Independence, James Wilson, an associate justice of the Supreme Court, and Robert Morris, a close friend of George Washingtons, spent time in jail after neglecting loans. Read More. Nearly two centuries ago, the United States formally abolished the incarceration of people who failed to pay off debts. ^ See, e.g., Telephone Interview with Nathan Woodliff-Stanley, Exec. And in Ferguson, Mo., simmering anger with the police and court system has given rise to a pair of lawsuits aimed at the local practice of imprisoning indigent debtors. . As noted above, the state bans on debtors prisons have been given short shrift in the legal literature and recent litigation.91 This Part begins by providing a brief historical overview of the state bans92 and then argues that ignoring them is a legal mistake: these imprisonment-for-debt provisions plausibly extend to some parts of contemporary debtors prisons. . The practice was partially abolished federally in 1839. It happens for two reasons. ^ See Tate, 401 U.S. at 400; Williams, 399 U.S. at 242 n.19. ^ See, e.g., Alec Karakatsanis, Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers, 128 Harv. art. ^ See Shepard, supra note 6, at 152930 (describing the rules origin in the common law precept that creditors must exhaust legal remedies before turning to equitable ones). In response, the Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice announced reforms to educate local courts on how to protect indigent defendants' rights. Is this debt private or public? Costs trigger the precedents, discussed above, of James and Fuller.147 Many state bans on imprisonment for debt provide equally (or more) unequivocal protections to the civil debtor than the exemption statutes in James did; a strong logic therefore suggests that the Court could more widely enforce Jamess prohibition on jailing defendants for failing to pay court costs. (9 Allen) 489 (1864)). See Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books 7172 (Robert Douglas-Fairhurst ed., Oxford Univ. art. Court costs and fees are civil, not criminal, obligations and may be collected only by the methods provided for the collection of civil judgments. Office of Judicial Servs., supra note 57 (citing Strattman, 253 N.E.2d at 754). See sources cited supra note 95. Mo. It calls for reform through legislative action and court rules. v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 320 (1976) (Marshall, J., dissenting); San Antonio Indep. A conference called by advocates for the abolition of debtors' prisons voted unanimously for resolutions2 including the understanding that . art. Const. But the spirit behind them ought to drive other constitutional actors executives, legislators, and citizens to take swift action.167. Its interesting to note that the Illinois state constitution specifically includes criminal fines. Cleveland sued the city, alleging that Montgomerys debt collection procedures and her resultant incarceration violated the Alabama and U.S. Constitutions. More problematically, these monetary obligations, unlike most taxes, are not indexed to wealth, income, or any other proxy for ability to pay. and is the first known codification of debt Sept. 16, 2015); Complaint, Fant v. Ferguson, supra note 48; Equal Justice Under the Law, Shutting Down Debtors Prisons, http://equaljusticeunderlaw.org/wp/current-cases/ending-debtors-prisons/ [http://perma.cc./56WT-6RLC]. These dungeons, such as Walnut Street Debtors Prison in Philadelphia and the New Gaol in downtown Manhattan, were modeled after debtors prisons in London, like the Clink (the origin of the expression in the clink). Donations from readers like you are essential to sustaining this work. As a result of the greater reliance on incarceration, says Karin Martin, a professor at John Jay College and an expert on criminal justice financial obligations, there was a dramatic increase in the number of statutes listing a prison term as a possible sentence for failure to repay criminal-justice debt3. Debt collection practices like these have had a devastating impact on people of color in the Atlanta metropolitan area. . (quoting Lamar v. State, 47 S.E. .); Developments in the Law Policing, 128 Harv. Justice Douglas agreed the issue wasnt properly in front of the Court. See, e.g., State v. Anton, 463 A.2d 703, 705 (Me. Read more. This imposes direct costs on the government and further destabilizes the lives of poor people struggling to pay their debts and leave the criminal justice system behind. Id. There are two types: private debt, which may lead to involvement in the criminal justice system, and criminal-justice debt, accrued through involvement in the criminal justice system. ^ But cf. ^ See DOJ, Ferguson Investigation, supra note 29, at 3, 910. 277 (2014). Ala. Nov. 17, 2014) [hereinafter Settlement Agreement, Mitchell v. Montgomery], http://equaljusticeunderlaw.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Final-Settlement-Agreement.pdf [http://perma.cc/R8S9-HW4N]. Donations from readers like you are essential to sustaining this work. 560.031(5) (2000) ([T]he fine may be collected by any means authorized for the enforcement of money judgments.) (to be transferred to Mo. I, 19; Pa. Const. First, some of the responses leave unresolved the substantive definition of indigence for the purposes of ability-to-pay hearings.63 Without such a definition, discretion is left to the same courts that have been imprisoning criminal debtors thus far.64 Second, even tightly written laws,65 settlements, and resolutions need to be enforced, which requires accountability and monitoring.66 Abolishing the new debtors prisons is as much a test of moral and societal conviction as it is of sound drafting. A century and a half later, in 1983, the Supreme Court affirmed that incarcerating indigent debtors was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection clause. ^ Cf., e.g., Miss. I, 22; Iowa Const. art. This article has 3 letters to the editor. The problems posed by nineteenth-century debtors prisons in the United States differ in many ways from the challenges posed today by criminal justice debt. Copyright 1887-2023 Harvard Law Review. art. 522, 525 (Fla. 1926); Plapinger v. State, 120 S.E.2d 609, 611 (Ga. 1961); Boyer v. Kinnick, 57 N.W. The ACLU charges that DeKalb County and the for-profit company Judicial Corrections Services teamed up to engage in a coercive debt collection scheme that focuses on revenue generation at the expense of protecting poor people's rights. ^ E.g., Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 66970 (1983). F. 253, 26263 (2015); McLean, supra note 1, at 88591; Campbell Robertson, Suit Alleges Scheme in Criminal Costs Borne by New Orleanss Poor, N.Y. Times (Sept. 17, 2015), http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/us/suit-alleges-scheme-in-criminal-costs-borne-by-new-orleanss-poor.html. Theres probably no principled reason to distinguish between attorneys fees and other costs, like a judgment fee or a clerk fee, but doctrinally the Court may have felt especially sensitive to discrimination with respect to assigning lawyers, given its recent decision mandating counsel for indigent defendants in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). (5 Gray) 530, 532 (1855); Eams v. Stevens, 26 N.H. 117, 120 (1852); Whitney v. Johnson, 12 Wend. This concern is amplified by the growing trend toward outsourcing portions of the criminal justice system, such as collection, to private actors like Sentinel Offender Services, a probation company that wields the threat of imprisonment via contract with the state. ^ See id. Members of the Court Costs and Fees Working Group include: Mitali Nagrecha, Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law . See Permanent Injunction, Jenkins v. City of Jennings, No. By reading a z leveled books best pizza sauce at whole foods reading a z leveled books best pizza sauce at whole foods How to define the category? Experts say that the trend, though ongoing, coincided with the rise of mass incarceration.. art. Thus, under James and Fuller, states cannot discriminate invidiously against at least some classes of criminal justice debtors (note that neither case involved fines) merely by virtue of the fact that the debts arise from a criminal proceeding. See State v. Thierfelder, 495 N.W.2d 669, 673 (Wis. 1993); see also Wis. Stat. I, 20 (That no person shall be imprisoned for debt.); Ga. Const. Perhaps this pushback will resolve the concerns described above. II, 13 (exempting fines and penalties imposed for the violation of law), and states where case law has specifically mentioned crime, e.g., Plapinger v. State, 120 S.E.2d 609, 611 (Ga. 1961). Imprisonment for indebtedness was commonplace. In fact, under the state law protections, criminal justice debtors would face a much friendlier inquiry than they would under Beardens freestanding equal protection jurisprudence.160 This is true under either of the two rules detailed above. In other words, poor people with debt face criminal consequences but without the Constitutional protections afforded to criminal defendants. Though poverty has increased in Lexington County since 2012with poverty rates for Black and Latino residents at more than double the rate for white residentsthe County continues to rely on revenue from fines and fees in magistrate court cases. art. Lanz v. Dowling, 110 So. See Werdenbaugh, 20 W. Va. at 593, 598. Also, criminal-justice debt affects private creditworthiness and eligibility for a drivers license, making it harder to get a job, get a home, get a loan, or otherwise find a way to avoid jail, repay the debt and regain solid economic footing. See id. Rev. ^ See Fla. Stat. At this time, the US federal government abolished debtors' prisons, where people had previously been incarcerated . ^ For constitutional provisions, see, for example, Ariz. Const. at 131. Stay informed about our latest work in Debtors' Prisons First name Last name Email ZIP code ^ See Natapoff, supra note 1, at 1098 & n.208; Developments in the Law Policing, supra note 5, at 1734. ^ See, e.g., United States v. Balint, 258 U.S. 250, 25152 (1922) ([T]he general rule at common law was that the scienter was a necessary element in the indictment and proof of every crime. 227, 234 (2013). Most recently, it filed a successful petition for habeas corpus for Richard Vaughan, a man sentenced to 18 days in jail for failing to pay a $895 fine that he could not afford. . at 132. ^ See Sarah Stillman, Get Out of Jail, Inc., New Yorker (June 23, 2014), http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/get-out-of-jail-inc [http://perma.cc/5SU8-EF72]. 357 (1889). [A]ny broadside pronouncement on their general validity would be inappropriate. Id. The ACLU Racial Justice Program and allies across the country are bringing lawsuits and advocacy to expose and challenge these practices. Debra Shoemaker Ford, a citizen of Harpersville, Ala., spent seven weeks in the county jail without ever appearing in court. In 2012 and 2013, the ACLU of Colorado sent letters to Chief Justice Bender of the Colorado Supreme Court and three Colorado municipalities.
Restoration Hardware Lighting Dupes, Articles T